Flood damage B2bn on farms

Written by changthai11 on Friday, October 3rd, 2008

WALAILAK KEERATIPIPATPONG

The floods that inundated 41 provinces last month have affected 2.6 million rai of farmland and caused damage to crops estimated at two billion baht.

Rice plantations in several Central Plains provinces made up about 2.1 million rai of the affected area, and about 300,000 rai were destroyed, according to the Office of Agricultural Economics (OAE).

But officials are confident the damage will have little impact on rice production, especially from the main crop for 2008-09, which is to be harvested from next month.

“We estimate a loss of about 100,000 tonnes of paddy from the damaged 300,000 rai,” said OAE secretary-general Apichart Jongskul. “But the volume is very small, less than 1% of a total of 23 million tonnes of paddy expected from the main crop.”

He added that Thailand still had plenty of rice. Eight million tonnes of paddy already harvested from the second crop will contribute to a total of at least 31 million tonnes of paddy this year for export and local consumption, he said.

However, the flood’s wider damage to the Thai economy is estimated at between five and eight billion baht by Thanavath Phonvichai, an economist at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce. He described the flood’s impact as “marginal” but said the main concern is the shrinking tourism industry, hit hard by political uncertainties and the global economic slowdown.

Based on information from the RadarSat satellite, Mr Apichart said the affected area includes 524,000 rai of cereal and sugarcane fields as well as about 54,475 rai used for horticulture and other crops.

Of the 2,694,677-rai flood-hit area, he said 401,587 rai were very heavily damaged and a quarter of these were in Lop Buri.

Heavy downpours have caused flooding in many provinces since Sept 15, claiming 20 lives and affecting nearly 200,000 people including many farmers.

Mr Apichart said that the Agriculture Ministry had set aside an initial fund of 2.8 billion baht to assist affected farmers with compensation of 606 baht per rai of rice field and 837 baht per rai of other crops.